More About Dolls
Why Dolls, Stuffed Toys,
and Even a Security Blanket
Can Be Vital for Healing
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Sometimes the comfort dolls provide comes through alters playing role reversal with their doll. In this case, the doll is imagined to have feelings (and those feelings are like those that torment the alter) and the alter assumes the role of offering comfort and understanding (just like what the alter himself/herself would dearly love to receive). Since, in this imaginary situation, it is the dolls feelings, and not the alters, it is not so terrifying for the alter to explore the feelings. Through the doll, the alter is able to connect with the feelings in a loving and safe environment that the alter has created in his or her mind. It is quite normal for any child to became highly attached to a doll, stuffed toy or some other object even a favorite blanket. So how much more should this be so for highly traumatized children who feel they cannot receive love and comfort from their parents. (Even the children of loving, caring parents will feel terrifyingly isolated if their abusers trick them into believing the abuse is the childrens fault and/or convince them that telling their parents will result in something catastrophic occurring.) There is even scientific evidence of the value of dolls to children who feel deprived of love. Psychologists experimented with monkeys it would be too cruel to do it on humans. The monkeys were reared without a mother. In one group, each monkey was kept in an empty cage. Monkeys in the other group were treated the same except they were given a large stuffed doll that looked rather hideous but vaguely like an adult mother. The significant finding was that monkeys in the second group not only clung to their doll but were more bold and acted more confident than those who had nothing.
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